Methods and systems for presenting advertisements to particular users based on perceived lulls in media assets

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems are also provided herein for presenting an advertisement to a user who perceives a media asset to be in a lull, and refraining from presenting the advertisement to a different user who does not perceive the media asset to be in a lull. Control circuitry may determine that a first user perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based on a first user profile. The control circuitry may determine whether or not the second user also perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based on a second user profile. In response to determining that the second user does not also perceive the segment of the media asset to be a lull, the control circuitry may cause the advertisement to be presented to the first user but not to the second user.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Advertising is a highly profitable industry and has a myriad ofapplications in all types of media. Media content distributors andproviders may be able to increase the profitability of their mediacontent by finding new and creative ways to incorporate advertising intotheir media.

SUMMARY

Methods and systems are provided herein for presenting advertisementsbased on social media activity. For example, in an effort to bettermonetize media such as a live sporting event, a media content providermay monitor social media activity and base the timing or placement of anadvertisement on the social media activity. As one example, a mediacontent provider may determine that a person who typically watchesparticular media content is currently watching the particular mediacontent, and is currently engaged in social media activity that isunrelated to the particular media content. The media content providermay determine that there is a lull in the media content and may place anadvertisement in the media content at that time to take advantage of aperiod where the user will not be distracted from a show that isintently being watched.

In some embodiments, control circuitry identifies that a first user isviewing a media asset. For example, the control circuitry may identifythat the first user is viewing a football game. The control circuitrymay retrieve a user profile for the first user and determine whether themedia asset matches characteristics of the user profile. As an example,the control circuitry may determine whether the user profile reflectsthat the first user typically watches football games. The controlcircuitry may detect that the first user has transmitted a communicationto a remote server, which in turn transmits the communication to aplurality of other users associated with the first user on the remoteserver. For example, the communication may be a live blog post, a stringof characters, a photograph, a video, any combination thereof, or anylike transmission.

The control circuitry may then determine whether the content of thecommunication is related to the media asset. For example, the controlcircuitry may determine that the communication is related to a footballgame if the communication identifies a football team (e.g., via ahashtag), if the communication includes keywords or photographsindicative of a football-related item (e.g., player names or statistics,a score, etc.), and the like. In response to determining that thecontent of the communication is not related to the media asset and thatthe media asset matches characteristics of the user profile, the controlcircuitry may cause an advertisement to be presented to the user. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that the user istransmitting communications that discuss a friend's birthday party,which may indicate that a lull has occurred in the football game and theuser is bored. The control circuitry may responsively present anadvertisement, e.g., as an overlay on top of at least a portion of avideo feed of the football game, as the user is unlikely to find theadvertisement intrusive since the user is not interested in the footballgame at the time.

In some embodiments, a user of the plurality of other users may haveexchanged a message with the first user that identifies the first user.For example, the user of the plurality of other users may have exchangeda request with the first user to become a “friend” or “buddy” of thefirst user, such that messages of either the first user or the user ofthe plurality of other users are visible to each of the first user andthe user of the plurality of other users.

In some embodiments, the content of the communication may be determined,by the control circuitry, to not be related to the media asset if thecommunication does not identify at least one of the identity of themedia asset, a feature of the media asset, and a happenstance of themedia asset. For example, the communication may be determined to notidentify the identity of the media asset if it does not name a title orgenre of the media asset (e.g., a team name of a team engaged in afootball game). As another example, the communication may be determinedto not identify a feature of the media asset if the communication doesnot identify something particular about the media asset (e.g., in thecontext of a football game, the term “touchdown” or “field goal”). Asanother example, the communication may be determined to not identify ahappenstance of the media asset if the communication does not discuss acurrent activity of the media asset (e.g., in the context of a footballgame, the communication does not mention a touchdown, even though atouchdown was scored within the last three minutes).

In some embodiments, the media asset is generated for display by thecontrol circuitry at a user equipment device of the first user, and thecommunication is received from the same user equipment device of thefirst user. For example, the user may be generating the communicationvia the user's television, and the user may be viewing the media asset(e.g., football game) on the user's television. The communication may bemade while the media asset is displayed, e.g., by overlaying a socialmedia communications application on top of the media asset.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may identify a second userthat is viewing the media asset, and may also cause the advertisement tobe presented to the second user in response to determining that thecontent of the communication is not related to the media asset and thatthe media asset matches characteristics of the user profile. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that, because the firstuser typically watches media assets like the presently playing mediaasset, and because the first user is generating communications that areunrelated to the media asset, there is a likelihood that anadvertisement is likely to be unobtrusive to a second user's viewingexperience of the media asset.

In some embodiments, in response to determining that the content of thecommunication is not related to the media asset and that the media assetmatches characteristics of the user profile, the control circuitry maymark a segment of the media asset as corresponding to a lull in themedia asset. For example, the first user may be bored while watching afootball game because a timeout is called, and may begin makingcommunications about something unrelated to the football game. Thecontrol circuitry may determine that a lull has occurred responsive tolearning that the first user is making communications that are notrelated to the football game.

In some embodiments, the advertisement may be presented to the firstuser as an overlay on top of the media asset. For example, if the useris watching a football game, the advertisement may be placed on top of avideo feed of the football game. The advertisement may be placedstrategically on top of the video feed such that it does not obstructviewing of, e.g., game play of the football game. In some embodiments,the advertisement may be semi-transparent such that activity occurringin, e.g., a video feed of a media asset may be visible behind the mediaasset.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may determine whether the firstuser has been viewing the media asset for a threshold amount of time,and may cause the advertisement to be presented to the first user inresponse to determining that (1) the content of the communication is notrelated to the media asset, (2) the media asset matches characteristicsof the user profile, and (3) the first user has been viewing the mediaasset for the threshold amount of time. For example, the controlcircuitry may refrain from making determinations about whether todisplay an advertisement until the user has been watching, e.g., afootball game, for at least 15 minutes. This may help avoid errantadvertisements being displayed while a user is, e.g., rapidly switchingbetween media assets (e.g., channel surfing) and has not settled onwatching a particular media asset.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may retrieve metadata of themedia asset from a database, and may identify a product or service basedon the retrieved metadata. The control circuitry may cause theadvertisement to advertise the identified product or service. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that the media asset is afootball game, and may cause the advertisement to include anadvertisement for football helmets.

Methods and systems are also provided herein for presenting anadvertisement to a user who perceives a media asset to be in a lull, andrefraining from presenting the advertisement to a different user whodoes not perceive the media asset to be in a lull. In some embodiments,control circuitry retrieves a first profile associated with a first userwho is consuming a media asset. The control circuitry may determine thatthe first user perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based onthe first user profile. For example, the media asset may be a footballgame where the New York Giants and the New England Patriots face oneanother. The control circuitry may determine that the first user is afan of the New England Patriots based on the user profile. The controlcircuitry may further determine that the New England Patriots are losingthe game by an insurmountable amount of points, and therefore the firstuser likely perceives the present segment of the football game as a lullbecause the team that the first user is rooting for will almostcertainly lose.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may determine that the firstuser perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull, and responsivelyidentify a second user who is also consuming the media asset. Thecontrol circuitry may retrieve a second user profile that is associatedwith the second user, and may determine whether or not the second useralso perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based on thesecond user profile. Following from the example above, for example, ifthe second user is a fan of the New York Giants, and the Giants arewinning a football game that is being played by a significant margin,the second user may be determined not to perceive the present segment ofthe media asset to be a lull because the second user is likely excitedand invested in the football game. In response to determining that thesecond user does not also perceive the segment of the media asset to bea lull, the control circuitry may cause the advertisement to bepresented to the first user but not to the second user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may monitor activity of the firstuser performed while the first user is consuming the media asset, anddetermine that the first user perceives the segment of the media assetas a lull based on the activity. As described in the foregoing, theactivity of the first user that is monitored may be communications ofthe first user. In some embodiments, the control circuitry may determinethat the first user perceives the segment of the media asset as a lullwhen receiving a message including content that is exclusively unrelatedto the media asset. In some embodiments, the remote server may make themessage available to a plurality of other users associated with thefirst user.

In some embodiments, the advertisement that the control circuitrypresents to the first user may be different from the advertisementpresented to the second user. For example, if the media asset is afootball game of the New York Giants versus the New England Patriots,the advertisement presented to the first user may be for a New YorkGiants player jersey, and the advertisement presented to the second usermay be for a New England Patriots player jersey.

In some embodiments, the second user may be associated with the firstuser. For example, the second user may be a friend or buddy of the firstuser on a social networking platform.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may, in response todetermining that the second user also perceives the segment of the mediaasset to be a lull, present the advertisement to both the first user andthe second user. For example, if the control circuitry determines that afootball game is in a timeout and there is no present game-relatedactivity, an advertisement may be presented to both users withoutrespect to their fan affiliations.

In some embodiments, determining that the first user perceives a segmentof the media asset as a lull based on the first user profile may includedetermining whether the content of the communication is related to themedia asset. For example, the control circuitry may detect that thefirst user has transmitted a communication to a remote server, and maydetermine whether the communication is related to the media asset (e.g.,a football game), e.g., by determining whether the communicationidentifies the media asset (e.g., identifies a football team. e.g., viaa hashtag), if the communication includes keywords or photographsindicative of a football-related item (e.g., player names or statistics,a score, etc.), and the like. In response to determining that thecontent of the communication is not related to the media asset and thatthe media asset matches characteristics of the user profile, the controlcircuitry may determine that the first user perceives a segment of themedia asset as a lull. For example, the control circuitry may determinethat the user is transmitting communications that discuss a friend'sbirthday party, which may indicate that a lull has occurred in thefootball game and the user is bored. The control circuitry mayresponsively present an advertisement, e.g., as an overlay on top of atleast a portion of a video feed of the football game, as the user isunlikely to find the advertisement intrusive since the user is notinterested in the football game at the time.

Methods and systems are also provided herein for establishing a mode ofcommunication between a first user and a second user when a media assetis in a lull. In some embodiments, control circuitry may retrieve afirst user profile associated with a first user who is consuming a mediaasset. The control circuitry may determine that the first user perceivesa segment of the media asset as a lull based on the first user profile.For example, the media asset may be a football game where the New YorkGiants and the New England Patriots face one another. The controlcircuitry may determine that the first user is a fan of the New EnglandPatriots based on the user profile. The control circuitry may furtherdetermine that the New England Patriots are losing the game by aninsurmountable amount of points, and therefore the first user likelyperceives the present segment of the football game as a lull because theteam that the first user is rooting for will almost certainly lose.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may retrieve a second userprofile associated with a second user, and may determine that the seconduser also perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based onthe second user profile. For example, the second user may also be a fanof the New England Patriots, which will result in the control circuitrydetermining that the second user has also lost interested in thefootball game. The control circuitry may responsively establish a modeof communication (e.g., a chat window) between the first user and thesecond user.

In some embodiments, the mode of communication may be a chat window. Insome embodiments, the mode of communication (e.g., chat window) may beaccessible to, and viewable by, both the first user and the second user.A chat window may, for example, be generated for display as an overlayon top of a media asset (e.g., football game). In some embodiments, themode of communication (e.g., chat window) may be generated for displayon a user equipment device that is different to a device (e.g., tabletcomputer) that the media asset is currently being consumed from (e.g.,television).

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may generate for display aselectable option for establishing the mode of communication on top ofthe media asset. For example, when a lull is perceived, a selectableoption to launch a chat window may be selected for causing the chatwindow to be overlaid on top of the media asset. As another example,when a lull is perceived by the control circuitry, the control circuitrymay establish the mode of communication on a specified user equipmentdevice in response to a selection of a selectable option. For example,if a “send to phone” option is selected, a chat window may appear on auser's smartphone device. As another example, a selectable option fortearing own the mode of communication may be generated for display bythe control circuitry (e.g., an “end chat session” button). As anotherexample, the control circuitry may generate for display a selectableoption to toggle a view of the mode of communication (e.g., when theoption is selected, a chat window is toggled on or off an overlay of themedia asset).

In some embodiments, control circuitry may transmit a selectable optionto a first user to join a communication session. When the first userselects the selectable option, the control circuitry may cause acommunications interface or social media interface to be enabled at auser equipment device of the first user (e.g., a chat window on thefirst user's tablet device). In some embodiments, the selectable optionmay be transmitted to the second user to join the communication session.In response to receiving a selection of the selectable option from thesecond user, the control circuitry may cause the communicationsinterface or social media interface to also be enabled at a userequipment device of the second user. In this manner, the controlcircuitry may enable any users who wish to join a chat session to do so.

It should be noted, the systems and/or methods described above may becombined with, applied to, or used in accordance with, other systems,methods and/or apparatuses discussed both above and below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings and other mediaguidance information in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 2 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment (UE) devicein accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen including amedia asset, an optional advertisement, and an optional social mediaapplication, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to a user;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative determinative steps involved indetermining whether to present an advertisement to a user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to one user and not another userbased on each user's perception, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure; and

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to open a mode of communication between two users, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Methods and systems are provided herein for presenting advertisementsbased on social media activity. For example, in an effort to bettermonetize media such as a live sporting event, a media content providermay monitor social media activity and base the timing or placement of anadvertisement based on the social media activity. As one example, amedia content provider may determine that a person who typically watchesparticular media content is currently watching the particular mediacontent, and is currently engaged in social media activity that isunrelated to the particular media content. The media content providermay determine that there is a lull in the media content and may place anadvertisement in an overlay on top of the media content, while the mediacontent is playing, at that time to take advantage of a period where theuser will not be distracted from a show that is intently being watched.

In some embodiments, control circuitry identifies that a first user isviewing a media asset. For example, the control circuitry may identifythat the first user is viewing a football game. The control circuitrymay retrieve a user profile for the first user and determine whether themedia asset matches characteristics of the user profile. As an example,the control circuitry may determine whether the user profile reflectsthat the first user typically watches football games. The controlcircuitry may detect that the first user has transmitted a communicationto a remote server, which in turn transmits the communication to aplurality of other users associated with the first user on the remoteserver. For example, the communication may be a live blog post, a stringof characters, a photograph, a video, any combination thereof, or anylike transmission. The control circuitry may then determine whether thecontent of the communication is related to the media asset. For example,the control circuitry may determine that the communication is related toa football game if the communication identifies a football team (e.g.,via a hashtag), if the communication includes keywords or photographsindicative of a football-related item (e.g., player names or statistics,a score, etc.), and the like. In response to determining that thecontent of the communication is not related to the media asset and thatthe media asset matches characteristics of the user profile, the controlcircuitry may cause an advertisement to be presented to the user. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that the user is sendingcommunications out that discuss a friend's birthday party, which mayindicate that a lull has occurred in the football game and the user isbored. The control circuitry may responsively present an advertisement,e.g., as an overlay on top of at least a portion of a video feed of thefootball game, as the user is unlikely to find the advertisementintrusive since the user is not interested in the football game at thetime.

Methods and systems are also provided herein for presenting anadvertisement to a user who perceives a media asset to be in a lull, andrefraining from presenting the advertisement to a different user whodoes not perceive the media asset to be in a lull. In some embodiments,control circuitry retrieves a first profile associated with a first userwho is consuming a media asset. The control circuitry may determine thatthe first user perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based onthe first user profile. For example, the media asset may be a footballgame where the New York Giants and the New England Patriots face oneanother. The control circuitry may determine that the first user is afan of the New England Patriots based on the user profile. The controlcircuitry may further determine that the New England Patriots are losingthe game by an insurmountable amount of points, and therefore the firstuser likely perceives the present segment of the football game as a lullbecause the team that the first user is rooting for will almostcertainly lose.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may determine that the firstuser perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull, and responsivelyidentify a second user who is also consuming the media asset. Thecontrol circuitry may retrieve a second user profile that is associatedwith the second user, and may determine whether or not the second useralso perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based on thesecond user profile. Following from the example above, for example, ifthe second user is a fan of the New York Giants, and the Giants arewinning a football game that is being played by a significant margin,the second user may be determined not to perceive the present segment ofthe media asset to be a lull because the second user is likely excitedand invested in the football game. In response to determining that thesecond user does not also perceive the segment of the media asset to bea lull, the control circuitry may cause the advertisement to bepresented to the first user but not to the second user.

Methods and systems are also provided herein for establishing a mode ofcommunication between a first user and a second user when a media assetis in a lull. In some embodiments, control circuitry may retrieve afirst user profile associated with a first user who is consuming a mediaasset. The control circuitry may determine that the first user perceivesa segment of the media asset as a lull based on the first user profile.For example, the media asset may be a football game where the New YorkGiants and the New England Patriots face one another. The controlcircuitry may determine that the first user is a fan of the New EnglandPatriots based on the user profile. The control circuitry may furtherdetermine that the New England Patriots are losing the game by aninsurmountable amount of points, and therefore the first user likelyperceives the present segment of the football game as a lull because theteam that the first user is rooting for will almost certainly lose.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may retrieve a second userprofile associated with a second user, and may determine that the seconduser also perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based onthe second user profile. For example, the second user may also be a fanof the New England Patriots, which will result in the control circuitrydetermining that the second user has also lost interested in thefootball game. The control circuitry may responsively establish a modeof communication (e.g., a chat window) between the first user and thesecond user.

The term “communication” wherever used in this disclosure refers to acommunication from a user that is intended to be viewed by one or moreother users. For example, the communication may be a social networkmessage (e.g., a post to a social networking profile intended to be seenby other users) that is sent to a social network server, where thesocial network server may cause the social network message to be seen byother users. This communication may be made of a textual string ofcharacters, a picture, a video, an icon, an audio communication, anyother item that is transmitted by a user and viewable or consumable byanother user, or any combination of thereof.

The term “identity of the media asset” wherever used in this disclosurerefers to any string of characters, image, video, or any other mediathat identifies a media asset in a manner that, if a user were to viewor hear the characters, image, video, or other media, the user wouldidentify the media asset.

The term “feature of the media asset” wherever used in this disclosurerefers to an aspect of a media asset that is typically associated withthe media asset. For example, features of a football game include afootball, a touchdown, a field goal, a 50-yard line, and the like.

The term “a happenstance of the media asset” wherever used in thisdisclosure refers to an event or a happening in a media asset. Forexample, if a touchdown is scored in a football game, the touchdown is ahappenstance of the football game.

The term “lull” wherever used in this disclosure refers to a portion orsegment of a media asset that involves less activity or is less excitingor engaging to at least one consumer of the media asset, as compared toanother portion or segment of the media asset. As an example, a lull maybe determined from an emotional indication of the user that isindicative of a user being less interested in a segment of a media assetas compared to another media asset. An emotional indication may be,e.g., determined via a biometric device that outputs a heartbeat patternthat is determined to indicate a lesser interest in a segment of a mediaasset as compared to a heartbeat pattern detected during a differentsegment of the media asset (e.g., a lull may be determined when a user'sheartbeat has lowered).

As used herein, a “social network,” refers to a platform thatfacilitates networking and/or social relations among people who, forexample, share interests, activities, backgrounds, and/or real-lifeconnections. In some cases, social networks may facilitate communicationbetween multiple user devices (e.g., computers, televisions,smartphones, tablets, etc.) associated with different users byexchanging content from one device to another via a social media server.As used herein, a “social media server” refers to a computer server thatfacilitates a social network. For example, a social media serverowned/operated/used by social media provider may make content (e.g.,status updates, microblog posts, images, graphic messages, etc.)associated with a first user accessible to a second user that is withinthe same social network as the first user.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, advertisements, chat sessions, socialmedia, applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), advertisement information (e.g., text, images, media clips,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 1-2 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 1-2 and 5 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 1-2 and 5 are illustrated as full screen displays,they may also be fully or partially overlaid over content beingdisplayed. A user may indicate a desire to access content information byselecting a selectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menuoption, a listings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing adedicated button (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or otheruser input interface or device. In response to the user's indication,the media guidance application may provide a display screen with mediaguidance data organized in one of several ways, such as by time andchannel in a grid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, bycategory (e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 1 shows illustrative grid program listings display 100 arranged bytime and channel that also enables access to different types of contentin a single display. Display 100 may include grid 102 with: (1) a columnof channel/content type identifiers 104, where each channel/content typeidentifier (which is a cell in the column) identifies a differentchannel or content type available; and (2) a row of time identifiers106, where each time identifier (which is a cell in the row) identifiesa time block of programming. Grid 102 also includes cells of programlistings, such as program listing 108, where each listing provides thetitle of the program provided on the listing's associated channel andtime. With a user input device, a user can select program listings bymoving highlight region 110. Information relating to the program listingselected by highlight region 110 may be provided in program informationregion 112. Region 112 may include, for example, the program title, theprogram description, the time the program is provided (if applicable),the channel the program is on (if applicable), the program's rating, andother desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 102 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 114, recorded content listing 116, andInternet content listing 118. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 100 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings114, 116, and 118 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 102 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 102. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 120. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 120.)

Display 100 may also include video region 122, advertisement 124, andoptions region 126. Video region 122 may allow the user to view and/orpreview programs that are currently available, will be available, orwere available to the user. The content of video region 122 maycorrespond to, or be independent from, one of the listings displayed ingrid 102. Grid displays including a video region are sometimes referredto as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and theirfunctionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfield et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat.No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated byreference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Advertisement 124 may provide an advertisement for content that,depending on a viewer's access rights (e.g., for subscriptionprogramming), is currently available for viewing, will be available forviewing in the future, or may never become available for viewing, andmay correspond to or be unrelated to one or more of the content listingsin grid 102. Advertisement 124 may also be for products or servicesrelated or unrelated to the content displayed in grid 102. Advertisement124 may be selectable and provide further information about content,provide information about a product or a service, enable purchasing ofcontent, a product, or a service, provide content relating to theadvertisement, etc. Advertisement 124 may be targeted based on a user'sprofile/preferences, monitored user activity, the type of displayprovided, or on other suitable targeted advertisement bases.

While advertisement 124 is shown as rectangular or banner shaped,advertisements may be provided in any suitable size, shape, and locationin a guidance application display. For example, advertisement 124 may beprovided as a rectangular shape that is horizontally adjacent to grid102. This is sometimes referred to as a panel advertisement. Inaddition, advertisements may be overlaid over content or a guidanceapplication display or embedded within a display. Advertisements mayalso include text, images, rotating images, video clips, or other typesof content described above. Advertisements may be stored in a userequipment device having a guidance application, in a database connectedto the user equipment, in a remote location (including streaming mediaservers), or on other storage means, or a combination of theselocations. Providing advertisements in a media guidance application isdiscussed in greater detail in, for example, Knudson et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2003/0110499, filed Jan. 17, 2003; Ward, IIIet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,997, issued Jun. 29, 2004; and Schein et al.U.S. Pat. No. 6,388,714, issued May 14, 2002, which are herebyincorporated by reference herein in their entireties. It will beappreciated that advertisements may be included in other media guidanceapplication display screens of the embodiments described herein.

Options region 126 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 126 may be part of display 100 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 126 may concern features related to program listings in grid 102or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 4. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 2. Video mosaic display 200 includes selectable options 202 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 200, television listings option 204 isselected, thus providing listings 206, 208, 210, and 212 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 200 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 208 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 214 and text portion 216.Media portion 214 and/or text portion 216 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 214 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 200 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 206 islarger than listings 208, 210, and 212), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Dec. 29, 2005,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 3 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 300. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 4.User equipment device 300 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 302. I/O path 302 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 304, which includesprocessing circuitry 306 and storage 308. Control circuitry 304 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 302. I/O path 302 may connect control circuitry 304 (andspecifically processing circuitry 306) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 3 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 304 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 306. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 308). Specifically, control circuitry 304 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 304 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 304 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 304 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 4). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 308 thatis part of control circuitry 304. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 308 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 4, may be used to supplementstorage 308 or instead of storage 308.

Control circuitry 304 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 304 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 300. Circuitry 304 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 308 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 300, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 308.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 304 using user inputinterface 310. User input interface 310 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 312 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300. For example, display 312 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 312may be integrated with or combined with display 312. Display 312 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 312 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 312 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 312.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry304. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 304.Speakers 314 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 300 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 312 may be played throughspeakers 314. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers314.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone application whollyimplemented on user equipment device 300. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage308), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 304 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 308 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 304 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 310. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 310 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 300 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 300. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 304 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 300. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 300.Equipment device 300 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 310 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 300 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 310.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 300 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 304). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 304 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 304. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 304. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 300 of FIG. 3 can be implemented in system 400 ofFIG. 4 as user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404,wireless user communications device 406, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 3 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, or awireless user communications device 406. For example, user televisionequipment 402 may, like some user computer equipment 404, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 404 may, like some television equipment 402, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 404, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 406.

In system 400, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 4 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 402, user computer equipment 404, wireless user communicationsdevice 406) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 414.Namely, user television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, andwireless user communications device 406 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 414 via communications paths 408, 410, and 412, respectively.Communications network 414 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 408, 410, and 412 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 412 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 4 it is awireless path and paths 408 and 410 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 408, 410, and 412, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 414.

System 400 includes content source 416 and media guidance data source418 coupled to communications network 414 via communication paths 420and 422, respectively. Paths 420 and 422 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 408, 410,and 412. Communications with the content source 416 and media guidancedata source 418 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 4 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 416 and media guidance data source 418 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 416 and 418 withuser equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 are shown as throughcommunications network 414, in some embodiments, sources 416 and 418 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 408, 410, and 412.

Content source 416 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 416 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 416 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 416 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 418 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 418may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 418 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 418 mayprovide user equipment devices 402, 404, and 406 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 308, and executedby control circuitry 304 of a user equipment device 300. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 304 of user equipment device 300and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 418) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 418), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 418 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices402, 404, and 406 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 400 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 4.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 414.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/179,410, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 416 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 402 and user computer equipment 404may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 406 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 414. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 416 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 418. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 402, user computer equipment 404, and wirelessuser communications device 406. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 404 or wireless usercommunications device 406 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 404. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 414. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 3.

In some embodiments, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) mayidentify that a user who typically watches a particular media asset(e.g., football games) is presently watching the particular media asset.The control circuitry may determine that the user has transmitted acommunication that is unrelated to the particular media asset. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that a user is sending amessage to wish another user a happy birthday while a football game isplaying. The control circuitry may determine that the communication(e.g., happy birthday message) is not related to the media asset (e.g.,football) that the viewer typically watches, and may responsively causean advertisement to be presented to the user. As an example, theadvertisement may be presented to the user because it is inferred that alull has occurred in the media asset (e.g., a timeout in a footballgame) based on the user transmitting a communication that is not relatedto the football game.

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen including amedia asset, an optional advertisement, and an optional social mediaapplication, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.Following from FIG. 5, a media asset 502 may be playing on userequipment 500. While user equipment 500 depicts a display of media asset502 as a video (specifically, a football game), media asset 502 may beany other media asset, such as a still image, an audio recording or livestream, or any other media asset. As will be described above and below,user equipment 502 may optionally display an embedded advertisement 504and a social media interface 506.

An exemplary embodiment of media asset 502 is a live sporting event.Hereafter, “media asset,” “live sporting event,” and “football game” areused interchangeably and have the same force and effect. During afootball game, there are various points of major activity andexcitement. For example, a scoring play or the beginning of an overtimeperiod in a football game may cause excitement and attentiveness inviewers. It may be possible to determine whether a media asset is in aperiod of excitement or major activity based on social media activity.For example, social media communications may occur in high volume bymany people in a short period of time that identify a particular mediaasset. Control circuitry 304 may determine that the media asset is in aperiod of excitement based on such social media activity. Determiningwhether a media asset is in a period of excitement based on social mediaactivity is described further in commonly owned and assigned U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 13/622,887, filed Sep. 19, 2012, currently pending,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

In contrast to periods of excitement, media assets may go into periodsof inactivity or reduced activity, thereby causing the inattentivenessof viewers. For example, in a football game, a play may be under review,or a timeout may be called. During these periods of time, viewers may beinattentive and may be distracted by other media. Control circuitry(e.g., control circuitry 304) may be able to determine that a mediaasset has gone into a period of inactivity based on communications of auser who typically watches media assets like the media asset presentlybeing viewed.

Following from FIG. 5, control circuitry 304 may determine that a useris viewing media asset 502 (e.g., a football game) and may identify theuser. Media asset 502 may be viewed for example via display 312. Mediaasset 502 may be provided from a media content source (e.g., mediacontent source 416) and may be navigated to by utilizing data from amedia guidance application, which may be at least partially provided viamedia guidance data source 418. Media asset 502 may be accessed by auser interacting with user equipment, such as user television equipment402, user computer equipment 404, or wireless user communications device406. Media asset 502 may be provided via a communications network (e.g.,communications network 414) from the source (e.g., media content source416).

Control circuitry 304 may retrieve a user profile for the user viewingmedia asset 502. The user profile may be retrieved from a database(e.g., media guidance data source 416) via a communications network(e.g., communications network 414). The user profile may reflecttendencies or preferences of the user. For example, the retrieved userprofile may be determined by control circuitry 304 to show that the userhas a history of viewing football games, or games of a particular team,and/or that the user tends to view football games for a long period oftime.

Control circuitry 304 may subsequently determine whether the media assetmatches characteristics of the user profile. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine characteristics of media asset 502, e.g., byaccessing stored characteristics at media guidance data source 418 viacommunications network 414. As an example, if media asset 502 is afootball game of the New York Giants versus the Washington Redskins,control circuitry 304 may determine the team names, the current win/lossrecords of the two teams, the current score, the current players on eachteam's roster, and the like. Control circuitry 304 may determine mediaasset 502 to match characteristics of the user profile if, e.g., theuser profile reflects that the user typically watches football games, orthat the user typically watches New York Giants games, or that the usertypically watches games where Eli Manning is the starting quarterback.

Social media interface 506 is depicted as an application or overlay overmedia asset 502 on user equipment 500. The functionality of social mediainterface 506, however, may occur on any device. For example, socialmedia interface 506 may be utilized on a second screen device, such asuser equipment 404, or wireless user communications device 406. Examplesof other devices that may include the functionality of social mediainterface 506 include cellular telephones, personal computers, smartwatches, laptops, tablet computers, video game consoles, and the like.

Control circuitry 304 may also detect that the user has transmitted acommunication via social media interface 506 to a remote server, wherethe remote server transmits the communication to a plurality of otherusers associated with the first user on the remote server. For example,control circuitry 304 may detect that the user has typed a string ofcharacters (e.g., using user input interface 310) and disseminated thecharacters to an audience by way of social media interface 506. Examplesof communications may include a live blog post, a social media message,an SMS message, and the like. The remote server (e.g., media guidancedata source 418) may be communicated to via communications network 414.The remote server may transmit the communication to the other users byway of communications network 414 such that the other users may,utilizing their own user equipment devices (e.g., user computerequipment 404) may view the communication (e.g., via display 312). Insome embodiments, the other users may have exchanged a message with theuser sending the communication that identifies the first user. Thatmessage may be a friend request or a buddy request, which, if accepted,associates the user and the other users as friends. Such exchanges arediscussed in further detail in co-pending, commonly-owned U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/986,461, filed on Nov. 21, 2007, which is herebyincorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Control circuitry 304 may determine whether the content of thecommunication is related to media asset 502. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether a feature or aspect of thecommunication identifies at least one of the identity of media asset502, a feature of media asset 502, and a happenstance of media asset502. The identity of media asset 502 may be determined by controlcircuitry 304 by, e.g., comparing characters of a text string of thecommunication or features of an image of the communication to a title ordescription associated with media asset 502. For example, if thecommunication says “Let's Go Giants!” and media asset 502 is a footballgame between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that the term “Giants” in the communicationidentifies the identity of the media asset. Control circuitry 304 maydetermine that the communication identifies a feature of media asset 502if, e.g., the communication identifies something typically common tomedia asset 502. As an example, if the communication is an imageincluding a football, and media asset 502 is a football game between theNew York Giants and the Washington Redskins, then control circuitry 304may determine that the communication includes an item (i.e., thefootball) that identifies a feature of media asset 502, since mediaasset 502 in this example is a football game. Control circuitry 304 maydetermine that the communication identifies a happenstance of mediaasset 502 if the communication includes, e.g., a string of characters oran image that describes a current happening in media asset 502. Forexample, if media asset 502 is a football game between the New YorkGiants and the Washington Redskins, and a touchdown was just scored atouchdown in media asset 502, and the communication is a string ofcharacters that says “Giants #Touchdown!!!!,” control circuitry 304 maydetermine that the communication identifies a happenstance of thegame—namely, that a touchdown was scored.

In order to determine whether the communication is related to the mediaasset, control circuitry 304 may parse the communication into variousportions and cross-reference each portion against information of adatabase (e.g., media guidance data source 418). For example, controlcircuitry 304 may retrieve metadata associated with media asset 502 frommedia guidance data source 418 and may cross-reference each parsedportion of the communication against the metadata associated with mediaasset 502. In some embodiments, if a portion of the communicationmatches metadata associated with media asset 502, control circuitry 304may determine that the communication identifies media asset 502. Inother embodiments, a threshold amount of the communication may have tomatch the metadata associated with media asset 502 for control circuitry304 to determine that the communication identifies media asset 502.

Control circuitry 304 may determine that the communication entered viasocial media interface 506 is not related to media asset 502. As anexample, control circuitry 304 may determine that the communication doesnot identify the identity of the media asset, a feature of the mediaasset, or a happenstance of the media asset. In response to determiningthat the content of the communication is not related to media asset 502,and that the media asset matches characteristics of the user profile,control circuitry 304 may cause an advertisement 504 to be presented tothe user. Advertisement 504 may be retrieved from a remote or localdatabase (e.g., storage 308 or media content source 416) viacommunications network 414. Advertisement 504 may have content that isrelated to the content of media asset 502. For example, if media asset502 is a football game, advertisement 504 may advertise a store thatsells football-related merchandise such as replica player jerseys. Inorder to present advertisement 504 with such contextually related data,control circuitry 304 may retrieve metadata of media asset 502 from adatabase (e.g., media content source 416) and may identify a product orservice based on the retrieved metadata. Advertisement 504 may theninclude or advertise the identified product or service.

When determining whether to cause advertisement 504 to be presented to auser, control circuitry 304 may consider the amount of communicationsthat have been transmitted by the user. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether a threshold number of communicationshave been transmitted by the user. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether a threshold number of communicationsthat identify media asset 502 have been transmitted by the user, and mayrefrain from presenting advertisement 504 unless the threshold number ofcommunications have been transmitted. In other embodiments, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether a threshold number of communicationsthat do not identify media asset 502 have been transmitted by the user,and may refrain from presenting advertisement 504 unless the thresholdnumber of communications have been transmitted. Control circuitry 304may also determine whether thresholds for both communications thatidentify media asset 502 and communications that do not identify mediaasset 502 have been met before causing advertisement 504 to bepresented.

Advertisement 504 may be overlaid on top of media asset 502 by controlcircuitry 304. As described above and below, advertisement 504 may occurwhen a user who typically views media asset 502 or similar media assetstransmits a communication unrelated to media asset 502. The reason forthis may be that control circuitry 304 determines that the user isdisinterested in the present activity of media asset 502, and so theuser would not be disturbed by the appearance of an advertisement.Alternatively, control circuitry 304 may determine that there is a lullin the action of media asset 502 and thus it may be an opportune time topresent advertisement 504. As an example, if media asset 502 is afootball game, if a timeout is called a user's viewing experience willnot be interrupted if advertisement 504 is presented, perhaps in anoverlay on top of media asset 502, because gameplay will not occurduring a timeout. As another example, if media asset 502 is a sportingevent, control circuitry 304 may determine that a user has an interestin one team that is losing by a certain amount of points, and istherefore likely to be disinterested in the game; control circuitry maydetermine therefrom that the present segment of media asset 502 is alull from the perspective of the first user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504to be transparent or semi-transparent. A transparent or semi-transparentpresentation of advertisement 504 may allow a user to view media asset502 simultaneously with advertisement 504 by allowing the user to seethrough advertisement 504 to view gameplay behind advertisement 504.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may identify a second userthat is viewing media asset 502 at the same time that theabove-described user is viewing media asset 502. Control circuitry 304may cause advertisement 504 to be presented to the second user for thesame reason that control circuitry 304 causes advertisement 504 to bepresented to the first user—namely, in response to the first usertransmitting a communication that is not related to the media asset 502,where media asset 502 matches characteristics of the first user'sprofile. Control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504 to bepresented at this time because if the first user is likely to bedisengaged from media asset 502 at a particular time, it is likely asecond user is as well. As an example, if the first user is an avidfootball fan and is sending unrelated communications to friends, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that any user would be disengaged at thattime—likely because a lull in activity is occurring. Accordingly,control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504 to be presented tosome or all other users.

Control circuitry 304 may determine whether the user has been viewingmedia asset 502 for a threshold amount of time before determiningwhether to cause advertisement 504 to be presented. For example, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether a user has been viewing media asset502 for at least five minutes, in order to ensure the user is notquickly changing between different media assets, or channel surfing.Control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504 to be presented to theuser when the content of a user communication is not related to mediaasset 502, the media asset matches characteristics of the user profile,and the user has been viewing the media asset for the threshold amountof time.

In some embodiments, when advertisement 504 is displayed, controlcircuitry 304 may provide a user with an option to skip the presentlydisplayed advertisement. The option may be indicated withinadvertisement 504 or may be indicated elsewhere on a display 312 of userequipment 500. Alternatively, a skip option may be located on a seconddevice, such as a second user equipment, a remote control, or any otherdevice that may enable a user to skip advertisement 504. Controlcircuitry 304 may access a queue of advertisements at a content source(e.g., media content source 416), or may locally queue a plurality ofadvertisements (e.g., at storage 308). Some or all of the advertisementsof the queue of advertisements may be contextually related to mediaasset 502. When a user selects an option to skip an advertisement,control circuitry 304 may cause a next advertisement of the queue to begenerated for display on display 312, or to be played back on speakers314. Control circuitry 304 may generate for display on display 312 amenu of advertisements that are queued such that a user may select apreferred advertisement to be displayed from the menu of advertisements.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may select advertisement 504based on both a user profile and the context of the media asset. Forexample, if media asset 502 is a football game, and control circuitry304 determines that the user happens to frequent the website of asporting good store based on the user profile, control circuitry 304 mayselect an advertisement for a football jersey that is sold by thesporting good store. As another example, control circuitry 304 mayproduce an a link to recent activity by a user as advertisement 504(e.g., a link to recent purchase activity, or a link to a website a userrecently visited), where, when the link is selected, the user isdirected to the linked destination.

In some embodiments, advertisement 504 may be recordable or storable forlater retrieval. For example, control circuitry 304 may generate fordisplay a selectable option to record or store advertisement 504. Asanother example, control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504 to beinteractive, such that, when advertisement 504 is selected, controlcircuitry 304 responsively records or stores advertisement 504 for laterretrieval (e.g., at storage 306).

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may cause advertisement 504to be presented to a user on a second screen device (e.g., userequipment 406) that is different than the user equipment device thatmedia asset 502 is generated for display on (e.g., user equipment device404). In some embodiments, advertisement 504 may be streamed to thesecond screen device by control circuitry 304 in real time. In otherembodiments, control circuitry 304 may store or record advertisement 504(e.g., in storage 308), and then later cause advertisement 504 to betransmitted to the second screen device for play back.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may determine that both thefirst user and the second user perceive the media asset to be a lull.For example, control circuitry 304 may determine that both the firstuser and the second user are fans of the New England Patriots based onthe user profiles of the first user and the second user (e.g., asretrieved from media guidance data source 418). Control circuitry 304may also determine that both the first user and the second user areconsuming media asset 502, which control circuitry 304 may determine tobe a football game between the New York Giants and the New EnglandPatriots (e.g., by consulting media guidance data source 418).

Control circuitry 304 may also learn by consulting a database (e.g.,media guidance data source 418) that the New York Giants are winning thegame by an insurmountable score. For example, control circuitry 304 mayidentify a threshold score differential, where, when the threshold scoredifferential is exceeded, control circuitry 304 determines that a scoredifferential is insurmountable. In some embodiments, control circuitry304 may determine the threshold score differential based on user profileinformation (e.g., a length of time for which a user tends to view a NewEngland Patriots game after a particular score differential hasoccurred). In some embodiments, the threshold score differential may bepredetermined, and control circuitry 304 may retrieve the predeterminedthreshold score differential (e.g., from storage 308 or media guidancedata source 418) for comparison against a present score differential.Control circuitry 304 may determine that the first user and the seconduser both perceive the segment of media asset 502 (e.g., the footballgame) to be a lull because the team both the first user and the seconduser are rooting for (e.g., the New England Patriots) are losing by ascore differential that exceeds the threshold score differential.

Control circuitry 304 may, in response to determining that the firstuser and the second user both perceive the segment of media asset 502 tobe a lull, establish a mode of communication (e.g., social mediainterface 506) between the first user and the second user. The mode ofcommunication may be a chat window that is made accessible by controlcircuitry 304 to, and viewable by, both the first user and the seconduser. Control circuitry 304 may cause the chat window to be generatedfor display as an overlay on top of media asset 502. Alternatively, oradditionally, control circuitry 304 may cause the chat window to begenerated for display on a user equipment device that is different thanthe user equipment device that media asset 502 is being consumed on. Asan example, media asset 502 may be consumed on user television equipment402, and control circuitry 304 may cause the chat window to be generatedfor display on user computer equipment 404. In some embodiments, controlcircuitry 304 may, when it is determined that a segment of media asset502 is a lull, cause a selectable option to be transmitted to the firstuser and/or the second user for joining a communication session. Controlcircuitry 304 may, when control circuitry 304 receives a selection ofthe selectable option (e.g., via user input interface 310), cause acommunications interface (e.g., social media interface 506) to beenabled at a user equipment device (e.g., user television equipment 402)of the first user or the second user.

In some embodiments, control circuitry 304 may generate for display(e.g., on display 312) one or more selectable options. As an example,control circuitry 304 may generate for display a selectable option forestablishing the mode of communication (e.g., social media interface506, which may be a chat window) on top of the media asset (e.g., mediaasset 502). When control circuitry 304 receives a user selection of thisselectable option (e.g., via user input interface 310), controlcircuitry 304 may cause social media interface 506 (e.g., a chat window)to be generated for display on top of media asset 502.

As another example, control circuitry 304 may generate for display(e.g., on display 312) a selectable option for establishing the mode ofcommunication (e.g., social media interface 506) on a specified userequipment device (e.g., wireless user communications device 406). Forexample, control circuitry 304 may generate for display a selectableoption (e.g., on top of media asset 502), where, when the selectableoption is selected, control circuitry 304 causes a chat window to openon a user's smartphone (e.g., wireless user communications device 406).

Control circuitry 304 may also generate for display (e.g., on display312) a selectable option for tearing down an established mode ofcommunication. For example, if a user is on a chat window (e.g., viasocial media interface 506) and wishes to exit the chat window, controlcircuitry 304 may receive a selection of a selectable option to exit thechat window and tear down any associated channel or mode.

Control circuitry 304 may generate for display (e.g., on display 312) aselectable option to toggle a view of the mode of communication (e.g.,social media interface 506). For example, each time control circuitry304 detects a user input (e.g., via user input 310) that selects theselectable option to toggle the view of the mode of communication,control circuitry may generate for display social media interface 506 ifit is not presently displayed, and may remove a display of social mediainterface 506 if it is presently displayed.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to a user. It should be noted thatprocess 600 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by,any of the devices shown in FIGS. 3-4. For example, process 600 may beexecuted by control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by a mediaguidance application implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipmentdevices 402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4)) in order to determine whether toretain media assets (e.g., as discussed in relation to FIG. 102). Inaddition, one or more steps of process 600 may be incorporated into orcombined with one or more steps of any other process or embodiment.

In some embodiments, a media asset provider may wish to dynamicallyoverlay an advertisement over a media asset based on social mediaactivity of a user. For example, if the user's profile reflects that theuser typically views the media asset or similar media assets, and theuser is presently transmitting communications that are not related tothe media asset, a media asset provider may configure control circuitry304 to deem it an opportune time to cause an advertisement to bepresented to a user.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to a user. In step 602, controlcircuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) may identify that a first useris viewing a media asset (e.g., media asset 502). Media asset 502 may beviewed by the first user via display 312. Media asset 502 may beaccessed by the first user or provided to the first user from a remotecontent source (e.g., media content source 416) via a communicationsnetwork (e.g., communications network 414).

In step 604, the control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) mayretrieve a user profile for the first user. The user profile may beretrieved from a local storage (e.g., storage 308) or a remote database(e.g., media guidance data source 418) accessible via a communicationsnetwork (e.g., communications network 414).

In step 606, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) maydetermine whether the media asset (e.g., media asset 502) matchescharacteristics of the user profile. For example, control circuitry 304may determine characteristics of media asset 502, which may be afootball game, and for which characteristics may be particular footballteam names, standings of a team relative to other teams, and the like.Control circuitry 304 may compare these characteristics of media asset502 with characteristics of the user profile, and determine whetherthere are characteristics in common between media asset 502 and the userprofile. In the event that there are commonalities, control circuitry304 may determine that media asset 502 matches characteristics of theuser profile.

In step 608, control circuitry 304 may detect that the first user hastransmitted a communication to a remote server. For example, the firstuser may utilize user input interface 310 to input a string ofcharacters to be sent as a communication, and control circuitry 304 mayreceive the communication and cause the communication to be transmittedvia communications network 414 to a remote server, such as mediaguidance data source 418. The remote server may transmit thecommunication to a plurality of other users associated with the firstuser on the remote server. The plurality of other users may receive thecommunication at respective control circuitry 304 of their respectiveuser equipment devices (e.g., user computer equipment 404). The otherusers may have exchanged a message with the first user that identifiesthe first user (e.g., a friend request).

In step 610, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) maydetermine whether content of the communication is related to the mediaasset (e.g., media asset 502). As described above and below, controlcircuitry 304 may determine that content of the communication is relatedto the media asset if the communication identifies at least one of theidentity of the media asset, a feature of the media asset, and ahappenstance of the media asset. For example, if media asset 502 is afootball game, and the communication includes the word “touchdown,”control circuitry 304 may determine that the communication identifies afeature of the media asset since a touchdown is an integral part of afootball game.

In step 612, in response to determining that the content of thecommunication is not related to the media asset (e.g., media asset 502)and that the media asset matches characteristics of the user profile,control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) may cause anadvertisement (e.g., advertisement 504) to be presented to the firstuser. As described above and below, control circuitry 304 may determinethat the communication is not related to media asset 502 if thecommunication does not identify at least one of the identity of themedia asset, a feature of the media asset, and a happenstance of themedia asset. Advertisement 504 may be presented to the first user byvia, e.g., display 312. The content of advertisement 504 may beretrieved from a content source such as media content source 416. Asdescribed above and below, the content of advertisement 504 may berelated to the same context of media asset 502, or may be related to adifferent context.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 6 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 6 may be done in alterativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-4 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 6.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative determinative steps involved indetermining whether to present an advertisement to a user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the invention. It should be noted that process700 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any ofthe devices shown in FIGS. 3-4. For example, process 700 may be executedby control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4)) in order to determine whether to retainmedia assets (e.g., as discussed in relation to FIG. 102). In addition,one or more steps of process 700 may be incorporated into or combinedwith one or more steps of any other process or embodiment.

In some embodiments, a media asset provider may wish to dynamicallyoverlay an advertisement over a media asset based on social mediaactivity of a user. For example, if the user's profile reflects that theuser typically views the media asset or similar media assets, and theuser is presently transmitting communications that are not related tothe media asset, a media asset provider may configure control circuitry304 to deem it an opportune time to cause an advertisement to bepresented to a user.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative determinative steps involved indetermining whether to present an advertisement to a user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the invention. In step 702, control circuitry(e.g., control circuitry 304) may identify that a first user is viewinga media asset (e.g., media asset 502). The first user may be viewing themedia asset via display 310 of user equipment 500. The media asset(e.g., media asset 502) may be accessed from media content source 416via communications network 414 by control circuitry 304 of userequipment device 500.

In step 704, the control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) mayretrieve a user profile for the first user. The user profile may beretrieved from a local storage (e.g., storage 308) or a remote database(e.g., media guidance data source 418) accessible via a communicationsnetwork (e.g., communications network 414).

In step 706, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) maydetermine whether the media asset (e.g., media asset 502) matchescharacteristics of the user profile of the first user. If controlcircuitry 304 determines that media asset 502 does match characteristicsof the user profile for the first user, for example, control circuitry304 may execute step 708. On the other hand, if control circuitry 304determines that media asset 502 does not match characteristics of theuser profile for the first user, control circuitry 304 may restartprocess 700. For example, control circuitry 304 may determinecharacteristics of media asset 502, which may be a football game, andfor which characteristics may be particular football team names,standings of a team relative to other teams, and the like. Controlcircuitry 304 may compare these characteristics of media asset 502 withcharacteristics of the user profile, and determine whether there arecharacteristics in common between media asset 502 and the user profile.In the event that there are commonalities, control circuitry 304 maydetermine that media asset 502 matches characteristics of the userprofile and may execute step 708 of process 700, or else controlcircuitry 304 may restart process 700.

In step 708, control circuitry 304 may detect that the first user hastransmitted a communication (e.g., to a remote server). For example, thefirst user may utilize user input interface 310 to input a string ofcharacters to be sent as a communication, and control circuitry 304 mayreceive the communication and cause the communication to be transmittedvia communications network 414 to a remote server, such as mediaguidance data source 418. The remote server may transmit thecommunication to a plurality of other users associated with the firstuser on the remote server. The plurality of other users may receive thecommunication at respective control circuitry 304 of their respectiveuser equipment devices (e.g., user computer equipment 404). The otherusers may have exchanged a message with the first user that identifiesthe first user (e.g., a friend request).

In step 710, control circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) maydetermine whether the content of the detected communication is relatedto the media asset (e.g., media asset 502). As described above andbelow, control circuitry 304 may determine that content of thecommunication is related to the media asset if the communicationidentifies at least one of the identity of the media asset, a feature ofthe media asset, and a happenstance of the media asset. For example, ifmedia asset 502 is a football game, and the communication includes theword “touchdown,” control circuitry 304 may determine that thecommunication identifies a feature of the media asset since a touchdownis an integral part of a football game. In the event that controlcircuitry 304 determines that the content of the communication isrelated to the media asset 502, control circuitry 304 may cause process700 to restart. If control circuitry 304 determines that the content ofthe communication is not related to the media asset 502, controlcircuitry 304 may execute step 712. In step 712, control circuitry 304may cause an advertisement (e.g., advertisement 504) to be presented. Asdescribed above and below, control circuitry 304 may determine that thecommunication is not related to media asset 502 if the communicationdoes not identify at least one of the identity of the media asset, afeature of the media asset, and a happenstance of the media asset.Advertisement 504 may be presented to the first user by via, e.g.,display 312. The content of advertisement 504 may be retrieved from acontent source such as media content source 416. As described above andbelow, the content of advertisement 504 may be related to the samecontext of media asset 502, or may be related to a different context.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 7 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 7 may be done in alterativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-4 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 7.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative determinative steps involved indetermining whether to present an advertisement to a user, in accordancewith some embodiments of the invention. It should be noted that process800 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any ofthe devices shown in FIGS. 3-4. For example, process 800 may be executedby control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4)) in order to determine whether to retainmedia assets (e.g., as discussed in relation to FIG. 102). In addition,one or more steps of process 800 may be incorporated into or combinedwith one or more steps of any other process or embodiment.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may retrieve a first user profileassociated with a first user, and determine, based on the first userprofile, that the first user perceives a segment of the media asset as alull. For example, the control circuitry may determine whether the firstuser is bored based on a happenstance of the media asset and based onthe first user's profile. The control circuitry may responsivelyidentify a second user who is consuming the same media asset, retrieve asecond user profile associated with the second user, and determinewhether or not the second user also perceives the segment of the mediaasset to be a lull based on the user profile. The control circuitry may,in response to determining that the second user does not also perceivethe segment of the media asset to be a lull, cause an advertisement tobe presented to the first user but not the second user.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to one user and not another userbased on each user's perception. Process 800 begins at step 802, wherecontrol circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) retrieves a user profile(e.g., from a data base such as media guidance data source 418 viacommunications network 414) associated with a first user who isconsuming a media asset (e.g., media asset 502). At step 804, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether the first user perceives the segmentof the media asset as a lull. For example, control circuitry 304 maydetermine whether the first user sent a communication that does notidentify media asset 502, as described in detail above and below, todetermine whether the first user perceives the segment of the mediaasset as a lull. As another example, control circuitry 304 may determinewhether a threshold score differential is exceeded in media asset 502,as described above and below, to determine whether the first userperceives the segment of the media asset as a lull. When controlcircuitry 304 does not determine the first user to perceive the segmentof the media asset as a lull, control circuitry 304 may restart process800 or end the process. When control circuitry 304 does determine thefirst user to perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull, controlcircuitry 304 may advance to step 806.

At step 806, control circuitry 304 may identify a second user who isalso consuming the media asset (e.g., media asset 502) and retrieve asecond user profile associated with the second user (e.g., from mediaguidance data source 418 via communications network 414). At step 808,control circuitry 304 may determine whether the second user perceivesthe segment of the media asset as a lull. For example, control circuitry304 may determine whether the second user sent a communication that doesnot identify media asset 502, as described in detail above and below, todetermine whether the second user perceives the segment of the mediaasset as a lull. As another example, control circuitry 304 may determinewhether a threshold score differential is exceeded in media asset 502,as described above and below, to determine whether the second userperceives the segment of the media asset as a lull. When controlcircuitry 304 does determine the second user to perceive the segment ofthe media asset as a lull, control circuitry 304 may end or restartprocess 800. When control circuitry 304 determines that the second userdoes not perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull, controlcircuitry 304 may advance to step 810.

At step 810, control circuitry 304 may cause an advertisement (e.g.,advertisement 504) to be presented to the first user but not the seconduser. For example, because the first user perceives the segment of themedia asset to be a lull, the first user is unlikely to be disturbed orinterrupted by the display of an advertisement (e.g., advertisement504). Likewise, because the second user does not perceive the segment ofthe media asset to be a lull, the second user is likely to be disturbedor interrupted by the display of an advertisement (e.g., advertisement504), so control circuitry 304 may responsively refrain from presentingadvertisement 504 to the second user.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 8 may be done in alterativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-4 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 8.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to open a mode of communication between two users, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process900 or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any ofthe devices shown in FIGS. 3-4. For example, process 900 may be executedby control circuitry 304 (FIG. 3) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices402, 404, and/or 406 (FIG. 4)) in order to determine whether to retainmedia assets (e.g., as discussed in relation to FIG. 102). In addition,one or more steps of process 900 may be incorporated into or combinedwith one or more steps of any other process or embodiment.

In some embodiments, control circuitry may retrieve a first user profileassociated with a first user, and determine, based on the first userprofile, that the first user perceives a segment of the media asset as alull. For example, the control circuitry may determine whether the firstuser is bored based on a happenstance of the media asset and based onthe first user's profile. The control circuitry may responsivelyidentify a second user who is consuming the same media asset, retrieve asecond user profile associated with the second user, and determinewhether the second user also perceives the segment of the media asset tobe a lull based on the user profile. The control circuitry may, inresponse to determining that the both the first user and the second userperceive the segment of the media asset to be in a lull, cause a mode ofcommunication to be established between the first user and the seconduser.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps involved in determiningwhether to present an advertisement to one user and not another userbased on each user's perception. Process 900 begins at step 902, wherecontrol circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 304) retrieves a user profile(e.g., from a data base such as media guidance data source 418 viacommunications network 414) associated with a first user who isconsuming a media asset (e.g., media asset 502). At step 904, controlcircuitry 304 may determine whether the first user perceives the segmentof the media asset as a lull. For example, control circuitry 304 maydetermine whether the first user sent a communication that does notidentify media asset 502, as described in detail above and below, todetermine whether the first user perceives the segment of the mediaasset as a lull. As another example, control circuitry 304 may determinewhether a threshold score differential is exceeded in media asset 502,as described above and below, to determine whether the first userperceives the segment of the media asset as a lull. When controlcircuitry 304 does not determine the first user to perceive the segmentof the media asset as a lull, control circuitry 304 may restart process900 or end the process. When control circuitry 304 does determine thefirst user to perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull, controlcircuitry 304 may advance to step 906.

At step 906, control circuitry 304 may identify a second user who isalso consuming the media asset (e.g., media asset 502) and retrieve asecond user profile associated with the second user (e.g., from mediaguidance data source 418 via communications network 414). At step 908,control circuitry 304 may determine whether the second user perceivesthe segment of the media asset as a lull. For example, control circuitry304 may determine whether the second user sent a communication that doesnot identify media asset 502, as described in detail above and below, todetermine whether the second user perceives the segment of the mediaasset as a lull. As another example, control circuitry 304 may determinewhether a threshold score differential is exceeded in media asset 502,as described above and below, to determine whether the second userperceives the segment of the media asset as a lull.

When control circuitry 304 determine the second user to not perceive thesegment of the media asset as a lull, control circuitry 304 may end orrestart process 900. When control circuitry 304 determines that thesecond user does perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull,control circuitry 304 may advance to step 910.

At step 910, control circuitry 304 may cause a mode of communication(e.g., via social media interface 506) to be established between thefirst user and the second user. For example, because both the first userand the second user perceive the segment of the media asset to be alull, the first user and the second user are both unlikely to bedisturbed or interrupted by the display of an advertisement (e.g.,advertisement 504). Accordingly, control circuitry 304 may establish amode of communication (e.g., a chat window via social media interface506) between the first user and the second user, such that the firstuser and the second user may communicate during the lull.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 9 may be done in alterativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Furthermore, it should be noted that anyof the devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 3-4 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 9.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in the present invention may be embodied in a computer programproduct that includes a computer usable and/or readable medium. Forexample, such a computer usable medium may consist of a read-only memorydevice, such as a CD-ROM disk or conventional ROM devices, or a randomaccess memory, such as a hard drive device or a computer diskette,having a computer readable program code stored thereon. It should alsobe understood, that methods, techniques, and processes involved in thepresent invention may be executed using processing circuitry. Forinstance, the determination of whether an advertisement should begenerated for display as described herein may be performed by processingcircuitry, e.g., by processing circuitry 306 of FIG. 3. The processingcircuitry, for instance, may be a general purpose processor, acustomized integrated circuit (e.g., an ASIC), or a field-programmablegate array (FPGA) within user equipment 108 or one of servers 122 ofFIG. 1. For example, media assets as described herein may be stored in,and retrieved from, storage 308 of FIG. 3, or media guidance data source418 of FIG. 4. Furthermore, processing circuitry, or a computer program,may update a user profile, the content of a communication of a user,updating the information stored within storage 308 of FIG. 3 or mediaguidance data source 418 of FIG. 4.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for presenting an advertisement, themethod comprising: retrieving, using communications circuitry, a firstuser profile associated with a first user who is consuming a mediaasset; determining, using control circuitry, that the first userperceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based on the first userprofile; in response to determining that the first user perceives thesegment of the media asset as a lull, identifying, using the controlcircuitry, a second user who is also consuming the media asset;retrieving, the communications circuitry, a second user profileassociated with the second user; determining, the control circuitry,whether or not the second user also perceives the segment of the mediaasset to be a lull based on the second user profile; and in response todetermining that the second user does not also perceive the segment ofthe media asset to be a lull, causing, the control circuitry, theadvertisement to be presented to the first user but not the second user.2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: monitoring activity of thefirst user performed while the first user is consuming the media asset;and determining that the first user perceives the segment of the mediaasset as a lull based on the activity.
 3. The method of claim 1, whereinthe media asset is a sporting event, wherein the first user isdetermined to perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull when afirst competitor in the sporting event has a first score in the sportingevent that is greater than a second score of a second competitor in thesporting event by a threshold amount, and wherein the second user isdetermined to not perceive the segment of the media asset as a lull whenthe first score is greater than the second score by the thresholdamount.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the firstuser perceives the segment of the media asset as a lull furthercomprises transmitting to a remote server a message from the first user,the message including content that is exclusively unrelated to the mediaasset, and wherein the remote server makes the message available to aplurality of other users associated with the first user.
 5. The methodof claim 1, wherein the second user is associated with the first user.6. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to determiningthat the second user also perceives the segment of the media asset to bea lull, causing the advertisement to be presented to the first user andthe second user.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that thefirst user perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based on thefirst user profile further comprises: detecting that the first user hastransmitted a communication to a remote server; determining whethercontent of the communication is related to the media asset; and inresponse to determining that the content of the communication is notrelated to the media asset and that the media asset matchescharacteristics of the first user profile, determining that the firstuser perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull.
 8. The method ofclaim 7, wherein the content of the communication is not related to themedia asset if the communication does not identify at least one of theidentity of the media asset, a feature of the media asset, and ahappenstance of the media asset.
 9. The method of claim 1, whereincausing the advertisement to be presented to the first user comprisesoverlaying the advertisement on top of the media asset.
 10. A system forpresenting an advertisement, the system comprising: communicationscircuitry; and control circuitry configured to: retrieve, using thecommunications circuitry, a first user profile associated with a firstuser who is consuming a media asset; determine that the first userperceives a segment of the media asset as a lull based on the first userprofile; in response to determining that the first user perceives thesegment of the media asset as a lull, identify a second user who is alsoconsuming the media asset; retrieve a second user profile associatedwith the second user; determine whether or not the second user alsoperceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull based on thesecond user profile; and in response to determining that the second userdoes not also perceive the segment of the media asset to be a lull,cause the advertisement to be presented to the first user but not thesecond user.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the control circuitryis further configured to: monitor activity of the first user performedwhile the first user is consuming the media asset; and determine thatthe first user perceives the segment of the media asset as a lull basedon the activity.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein the media asset isa sporting event, wherein the first user is determined to perceive thesegment of the media asset as a lull when a first competitor in thesporting event has a first score in the sporting event that is greaterthan a second score of a second competitor in the sporting event by athreshold amount, and wherein the second user is determined to notperceive the segment of the media asset as a lull when the first scoreis greater than the second score by the threshold amount.
 13. The systemof claim 10, wherein the control circuitry is further configured, whendetermining that the first user perceives the segment of the media assetas a lull further, to transmit to a remote server a message from thefirst user, the message including content that is exclusively unrelatedto the media asset, and wherein the remote server makes the messageavailable to a plurality of other users associated with the first user.14. The system of claim 10, wherein the second user is associated withthe first user.
 15. The system of claim 10, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to, in response to determining that thesecond user also perceives the segment of the media asset to be a lull,cause the advertisement to be presented to the first user and the seconduser.
 16. The system of claim 10, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured, when determining that the first user perceives asegment of the media asset as a lull based on the first user profile,to: detect that the first user has transmitted a communication to aremote server; determine whether content of the communication is relatedto the media asset; and in response to determining that the content ofthe communication is not related to the media asset and that the mediaasset matches characteristics of the first user profile, determine thatthe first user perceives a segment of the media asset as a lull.
 17. Thesystem of claim 16, wherein the content of the communication is notrelated to the media asset if the communication does not identify atleast one of the identity of the media asset, a feature of the mediaasset, and a happenstance of the media asset.
 18. The system of claim10, wherein the control circuitry is further configured, when causingthe advertisement to be presented to the first user, to overlay theadvertisement on top of the media asset.